Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Most of the blogs that I post are about fart jokes. Sometimes, they are about wiener [hmmm... "i before e", indeed] jokes. Or about alcohol. Or things that I hate. When I'm really on it, I'll throw in a joke about Michael Bolton. It's days when I manage to get all of those things in their together that I flirt with triple digit blog views in a day. As a matter of fact, you're contributing to it right now. Hello, advertising dollars! Crap, I should install something that allows me to make some sweet cash from this here blog. How does the internet work?

This particular entry, however, is not one of my typical blog entries.

Ryan Rado and I met each other in 1994. To give you an idea of what that was like, chatrooms were just becoming popular, Sunny Day Real Estate (you know, that band, that all those other bands that got kinda popular 8 years ago were really into) had just released their FIRST record, and Taylor Swift was in kindergarten. 17 years later, he and I are still friends. I was in his wedding. I am roommates with him and his wife, Christina, and apparently, there's another dude who has lived in our house for the past month or so and I'm pretty sure his name is John Williams but I haven't ever had a conversation with him. At any rate, Ryan and I have a friendship that has lasted (according to a study that I just made up) about as long as most marriages. It's a good thing we're still friends and roommates because I borrowed a sweater from him a long-ass time ago and still have it. And he has my Telecaster. I want that back, eventually.

The point is, I know this dude. He and I connect on lots of things, despite our very different personalities. One thing that he and I have always seemingly connected on is our desire to make the world a better place. I'm finally in a position to do a bit of financial good in the world. If any of you makes a crack about my New Zealand trip last year costing a bunch of money, I'll talk to you after you've done 40 weekend midnight wedding cleanups, logged thousands of miles in a van, and written 3500 trivia questions in addition to working 45 hours a week, Monday through Friday. I'm blessed (through grace, hard work, talent, and ability) to have a job that allows me to live the kind of life that I want to live. Yes, this includes my new pre-owned scooter (thanks, Patrick and Amanda). And, thankfully, I'm able to do something for someone else.

That someone else is Ryan Rado. For those of you [hang on, I'm listening to Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA" - I'll be right back] who know me or have ever stepped in Nashville, you probably know him. He has, for the majority of his life, worked through (I refuse to use the word "suffered" because what's that even mean, anyway?) several different afflictions: the most notable is Tourette Syndrome. It's real and the dude isn't faking it.

The same night that I agreed to buy the above scooter from Patrick and Amanda at RCC3's birthday, Ryan was talking with musician/artist/videographer Ethan Luck about making a video to help him out to raise funds for his Neuro Treatment Training. Ryan has asked a few people to be in the video that they are working on: myself included. At any rate, here is the trailer that they shot a few days ago at our house: